Martin Brunt is the Chief Crime Correspondent for SKY News. As such, he gets to cover all the major crime stories. And they don’t come much bigger than the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

One little known fact about Martin Brunt is that prior to Madeleine McCann’s disappearance in May 2007, he had for many years owned a villa in the village.

It’s a curious place, Praia da Luz.

Serial sex abuser of women, Sir Clement Freud, also had a villa over there. Senior Freemason, Past Grand Master Edward Smethurst, the McCanns’ co-ordinating lawyer, has been holidaying in the village for the past 18 years. Martin Smith, with his strange tales of strangers who didn’t look like a tourist passing him down a dark alley, part-owns an apartment there. How could he tell in a second or two in the dark whether the bloke ‘looked like a tourist’ or not?

Another long-term resident of Praia da Luz, of course, was the mysterious RobertMurat. And here’s where we begin to get really interested in Martin Brunt, because we have in the PJ files two recorded conversations between Martin Brunt and RobertMurat, both on the same day - 15 May 2007 - the day after Murat was made an arguido.

These conversations are curious for a number of reasons. First, Brunt, RobertMurat and Jenny Murat, his mother, all seem very chummy-chummy on the ’phone.

Most interest centres around exactly why Martin Brunt was offering the services of SKY News’s lawyers to Murat. What was the motive for that? Who at SKY News authorised Brunt to make such an offer to Murat?

Even more interest centres around this little exchange at the end of the first Brunt-Murat conversation:

ROBERTMURAT:I never have any problem with making a statement.MARTIN BRUNT: OKROBERTMURAT: I have no problem whilst...Whilst I have the legal cover to do so. Because I don’t want to end up in prison....(sigh)MARTIN BRUNT: That would be the last thing we want.ROBERTMURAT: Firstly, for something I did not do and secondly for something that would break their contract rules...MARTIN BRUNT: I understand that and I understand the sensitive nature of everything that we have been working with since we arrived here, so...

Loads of questions jump out from the above exchanges.

For a start, Brunt talks about ‘since we arrived here’. He does not use ‘I’, but ‘we’. Who else is he referring to? When did ‘they’ arrive? It seems that Brunt and SKY News were there from Day One – Friday 4 May.

Next question: WHAT exactly had they both been ‘working with’?

But perhaps still more interest centres around Murat’s mention of ‘a contract’. It is clear from the context that this ‘contract’ must have a very close connection to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann and to his arrest.

“Break their contract rules”?

Whose contract rules exactly?

Could this be why RobertMurat spent so much time talking to his lawyer, Francisco Pagarete, after he suddenly flew over to Praia da Luz on Tuesday 1 May? Was Murat really - as he claimed - merely discussing his girlfriend Michaela’s divorce from Luis Antonia and the setting up of ‘Romigen’?

Maybe he was not talking to Pagarete about any of that. Maybe he was discussing a very important contract.

Could that contract have been to provide translation services after the abduction alarm was raised - and to find out all he could about the PJ investigation for certain people and if possible try to divert the PJ by coming up with a host of suggestions for lines of enquiry the PJ should pursue?

Because that’s exactly what he ended up doing - as discussed in Inspector Varanda’s complaint about Murat to Gonçalo Amaral.

Could that contract even have included moving the body of Madeleine McCann to a safe location? – after all, when first questioned by the PJ, Murat lied by not disclosing that he had visited a number of houses between Tuesday 1st and Thursday 3rd May. He had also clearly lied comprehensively about two meetings he attended on the Thursday, one several miles west of Praia da Luz, the other several miles east of Praia da Luz at the Palmeras Golf Club.

Did Brunt perhaps know the secret of this ‘contract’. It looks like he did. Using guarded language, no doubt aware that his call to Murat might be being recorded, he acknowledges that the ‘contract’ issue is ‘of a sensitive nature’.

If Brunt knew about Murat’s contract with whoever it was, that alone would qualify him as a rogue.

____________________Goncalo Amaral: "Then there's the window we found Kate's finger prints.She said she had never touched that window and the cleaning lady assured that she had cleaned it on the previous day....it doesn't add up"

ROBERTMURAT:I never have any problem with making a statement.MARTIN BRUNT: OKROBERTMURAT: I have no problem whilst...Whilst I have the legal cover to do so. Because I don’t want to end up in prison....(sigh)MARTIN BRUNT: That would be the last thing we want.ROBERTMURAT: Firstly, for something I did not do and secondly for something that would break their contract rules...MARTIN BRUNT: I understand that and I understand the sensitive nature of everything that we have been working with since we arrived here, so...

Dr Martin Roberts: "The evidence is that these are the pjyamas Madeleine wore on holiday in Praia da Luz. They were photographed and the photo handed to a press agency, who released it on 8 May, as the search for Madeleine continued. The McCanns held up these same pyjamas at two press conferences on 5 & 7June 2007. How could Madeleine have been abducted?"

ROBERTMURAT:I never have any problem with making a statement.MARTIN BRUNT: OKROBERTMURAT: I have no problem whilst...Whilst I have the legal cover to do so. Because I don’t want to end up in prison....(sigh)MARTIN BRUNT: That would be the last thing we want.ROBERTMURAT: Firstly, for something I did not do and secondly for something that would break their contract rules...MARTIN BRUNT: I understand that and I understand the sensitive nature of everything that we have been working with since we arrived here, so...

Not forgetting How Martin **nt deliberate "Mental torture" he imposed on Mrs Brenda Leyland(RIP) with his live broadcast on Sky News of uncovering(Sweepyface@)"well it's not a secret anymore" quote?What people find out about Madeleine McCann's disappearance,shows a direct link to one Rupert Murdoch and his employees,the fragrant Rebekah,her lover Andy and one David Cameron,now who was it who set up"Operation Grange"to help the McCann Family?

He has a reputation for gaining insider information: Hugo Rifkind reported in The Times diary of 22 December 2006:"High praise for the Sky News crime correspondent Martin Brunt. When a hack from (another) newspaper phoned Suffolk Police press office with a query on the serial killer case, he was told: 'Call Martin Brunt. He knows everything before we do.' A little concerning."Brunt was first to report the arrest of Amy Winehouse, and the resignation of Sir Ian Blair as Metropolitan Police commissioner, and was the first to interview RobertMurat, then suspected of involvement in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. His contacts also led to Sky News being first to report that the 7 July events in London were the work of terrorists and allowed Sky News to break the news of the death of the Queen Mother. In 2010, Brunt reported live from Rothbury during the police hunt for gunman Raoul Moat.[1]

If Brunt is first with so many major stories, maybe, like a number of other journalists, he is working for MI5 - in exchange for.... we don't know what. Possibly putting a certain slant on a story?

Maybe Mrtin Brunt, as the media outlet for the Security Services, has no choice in the matter as all are aware of the SS modus operandi.Maybe he pushes the SS line in exchange for getting the "scoop", and not getting in trouble with his paymasters. However, I do not know what info they have to persuade him. Perhaps it is just ego.

@JimbobJones wrote:Maybe Martin Brunt, as the media outlet for the Security Services, has no choice in the matter as all are aware of the SS modus operandi.

Maybe he pushes the SS line in exchange for getting the "scoop", and not getting in trouble with his paymasters. However, I do not know what info they have to persuade him. Perhaps it is just ego.

One of the interesting revelations in the forum-owner's article was that Martin Brunt had a villa in Praia da Luz - perhaps still has.

Jenny Murat seemed very familiar with him when Brunt telephoned her on 15 May 2007: 'Hello Martin'. Did Brunt and the Murats know each other before 3 May 2007? - it seems very possible.

It's also interesting that Praia da Luz was also the place of choice for serial paedophile Sir Clement Freud to buy a villa for himself.

Moreover, the McCanns' 'co-ordinatng solicitor' and fellow-Director of the Find Madeleine Fund, Freemason Edward Smethurst, also chose this as his holiday resort nearly 20 years ago, renting a villa there or three weeks every summer, taking the children from one or other of his three families.

And it was also the choice of Dr Davd Payne, he of 'Gaspars Statements' fame, for his 2007 holiday, a recommendation the McCanns eagerly accepted, along with their other Tapas 7 friends.

Jon Corner, Madeleine's godfather, also admitted to being a regular visitor there.

Perhaps it was also just a co-incidence that the McCanns' friend Dr Ray Wyre and his wife, with whom they spent an enjoyable day in January 2008, wrote of his detailed knowledge of 'a ring of British ex-pat paedophiles living in the Algarve'. Maybe Dr Wyre was one himself...after all, his name was promiment on the Elm House guest list.

Too many co-incidences?

____________________

Dr Martin Roberts: "The evidence is that these are the pjyamas Madeleine wore on holiday in Praia da Luz. They were photographed and the photo handed to a press agency, who released it on 8 May, as the search for Madeleine continued. The McCanns held up these same pyjamas at two press conferences on 5 & 7June 2007. How could Madeleine have been abducted?"

Eddie and Keela alerted to items and places concerned with the McCanns - and importantly to no other items or places.

According to Eddie and Keela, the body of Madeleine McCann lay lifeless behind the sofa in Apartment 5a, clinging to the only thing from which she could derive any comfort; a soft toy called 'Cuddle cat'.

Kate's book 'madeleine', Page 219: "Did they really believe that a dog could smell the 'odour of death' three months later from a body that had been removed so swiftly?"

After forensic analysis of the 'Last Photo' there is little doubt now that the pool photo CANNOT POSSIBLY have been taken on the Thursday 3rd May, but most likely on the Sunday 29th April. So, where was Madeleine at lunchtime on Thursday?

John McCann:"This was terrible for them, Kate dressed Amelie in her sister's pyjamas and the baby said: "Maddy's jammies, where is Maddy?"Martin Roberts:"If Madeleine's pyjamas had not, in fact, been abducted then neither had Madeleine McCann."Dr Martin Roberts: A Nightwear Job

Death Toll in McCann Case

Gerry McCann called for an example to be made of 'trolls'. SKY reporter Martin Brunt doorstepped Brenda Leyland on 2 October 2014 after a 'Dossier' was handed in to Police by McCann supporters. She was then found dead in a Leicester hotel room the next day. Brenda paid the price.

Colin Sahlke died suddenly in mysterious circumstances with a significant amount of morphine in his system. At the Inquest the coroner said there was no evidence as to how he had come to take morphine, and no needle mark was found.Gerry McCann had met Sahlkebefore he helped with the search but did not show any concern for his death. Link

Ex-Met DCI Andy Redwood had a "revelation moment" on BBC1's Crimewatch on 14th October 2013 when he announced that Operation Grange had eliminated the Tanner sighting - which opened up the 'window' of opportunity' from 3 minutes to 45 minutes, in accordance with their remit, to allow the staged abduction to happen.

The 'SunOnline' journalist, Tracey Kandohla: "A McCann pal told The Sun Online: "Some of the savings have been siphoned off from the Find Maddie Fund into a fixed asset account, which financial experts have advised them to do. It can be used for purchases like buying a house, or building equipment."